"Several years ago, I conducted a wedding ceremony on a Saturday afternoon in June. The bride wore a white summer dress, the groom a white linen shirt. They insisted on the simplest ceremony possible. It was held in a park in a grove of trees. Their families and friends stood in a circle, with the three of us in the middle. I began with a welcome, they exchanged vows and rings, I pronounced them husband and wife, they kissed, everybody clapped. The ceremony took seven minutes.
"They were then each handed a cluster of helium balloons on strings. The balloons, I told everybody, were symbols of their past marriages, pregnancies they had chosen to terminate, people they had had affairs with when they were previously married, relationships that had not lasted. As a picture of starting over, together, they wanted their first act as a married couple to be letting the balloons go.
"They walked out of the grove of trees into an adjoining field. Just the two of them, holding hands, standing in knee-high grass, exchanging words that only they could hear. Then they raised the balloons above their heads and let them go. We all stood there, watching those balloons float away until they drifted from sight.
"There are moments you wonder if you'll ever forget. Events that sear themselves on your conscience. That moment was one of those for me.
:A few years later their marriage imploded. She moved an hour away. He relocated to another part of the country. They divorced.
"I finish with this story because life is messy. Gut wrenching. Risky. Things don't always turn out well. Sometimes they don't turn out at all. Sometimes everything falls apart and we wonder if there's any point to any of it. We're tempted to shut ourselves off, fortify the walls around our hearts, and forge ahead, promising ourselves we will never open ourselves up like that again.
"But I have to believe that we can recover from anything. I have to believe that God can put anything - anyone - back together. I have to believe that the God Jesus invited us to trust is as good as he says he is.
"Loving
"Forgiving.
"Merciful.
"Full of grace.
"And I have to believe that God does not run out of balloons."
5 comments:
I absolutely LOVVVED this!!!
Great post. Very good.
LOVE this...so thankful that God has enough balloons for all my screwups!
Very sad story. But I do love this part "But I have to believe that we can recover from anything. I have to believe that God can put anything - anyone - back together." God is good, and I hope in his healing!
How much fun!!! I went with my uncle to a balloon festival as a kid. One day I hope to take Ellie too.
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